A government always finds itself obliged to resort to inflationary measures when it cannot negotiate loans and dare not levy taxes, because it has reason to fear that it will forfeit approval of the policy it is following if it reveals too soon the financial and general economic consequences of that policy. Thus inflation becomes the most important psychological resource of any economic policy whose consequences have to be concealed; and so in this sense it can be called an instrument of unpopular, that is, of antidemocratic policy, since by misleading public opinion it makes possible the continued existence of a system of government that would have no hope of the consent of the people if the circumstances were clearly laid before them. That is the political function of inflation. When governments do not think it necessary to accommodate their expenditure and arrogate to themselves the right of making up the deficit by issuing notes, their ideology is merely a disguised absolutism.

- Ludwig von Mises

How Wall Street Died

Let me take you back to the fall of 1999. I was a senior in college without a clue what I wanted to do with my life. Wall Street was in a boom and seemed exciting. I had always loved the financial markets since I had first discovered them years earlier; however, I wasn’t convinced this was the profession I wanted. I had majored in Economics at school for practical purposes but I found almost all of the courses to be extraordinarily uninspiring with the exception of a few like Corporate Finance and the Economic History of China. It was the general micro and macro economics courses that I found the most painful to sit through. I wasn’t alone in this assessment. Many of my close friends were Economics majors as well and we all felt the same way (I later found out this was because we were being indoctrinated in voodoo Keynesian economics) . So even with the Economics degree I wasn’t sure that I wanted to pursue a career in finance given the fact that I found myself more interested in subjects such as English , History and Philosophy. Nevertheless, the firms were hiring, I had the degree and it would allow me to move back to New York City without living at home.

What I discovered as I interviewed for jobs disturbed me right away. Every single firm with the exception of one was completely obsessed with math. Entire interviews revolved around “how quantitative are you” and the like. Although I hadn’t had much experience with investing I had enough to know this line of thinking seemed preposterous. It seemed to me only basic math skills are necessary to be a successful equity investor. Besides that, it seemed that the key is understanding that the world is always changing rapidly under the surface and therefore what is a good business today might be bankrupt tomorrow and what is a start up today could be the next Microsoft. This seems obvious but the skill set to figuring all this out is more geared to an appreciation of human psychology, historical cycles and cultural shifts (both fads and structural changes) than math. What I realized later is the reason they were so focused on mathematicians and Phd’s is that Wall Street was moving away from what it was always meant to be - a conduit between the holders of capital and those that wish to deploy that capital in productive economic activity. Rather than trying to hire a well rounded workforce of intelligent college graduates the firms were hiring a cadre of quantitative robots that would play an instrumental roll in blowing up the world’s financial system.

When you get too many people of a particular mindset (in this case highly quantitative and academic) to aggregate in a field that is very much a people business and one where “street smart” common sense is of extreme importance you are asking for serious trouble. When you couple that with a Federal Reserve that keeps interest rates too low what you get is a bunch of quants inventing products that provide a yield sufficient for pensions and others struggling to earn a return. Products that are completely mispriced for the risk inherent in them. I am not placing all of the blame on the Wall Street firms (although they deserve a lot and the fact people haven’t been punished severely is a huge reason why there is no confidence on main street), rather I believe the Federal Reserve deserves 95% of it. If it wasn’t for them manipulating the price of money to absurdly low levels you wouldn’t have had the rush into toxic products in a search for yield. While the newly enthroned Wall Street quant army would surely have done their damage nonetheless it wouldn’t have resulted in the complete destruction of the financial and monetary system that we face today. In a nutshell, this is how I think Wall Street died and until it gets its act together will remain a corpse.

The Elites Have Lost Their Right to Rule

One of my favorite quotes is from Joseph Schumpeter who said “everyone has elites the important thing is to change them from time to time.” Of course, this is what happens in a well functioning democracy. The problem today and the reason why the United States is on the verge of some sort of revolution (I believe it will manifest as a revolution of ideas and not an armed one) is that the election of Obama has proven to everyone watching with an unbiased eye that no matter who the President is they continue to prop up an elite at the top that has been running things into the ground for years. The appointment of Larry Summers and Tiny Turbo-Tax Timmy Geithner provided the most obvious sign that something was seriously not kosher. Then there was the reappointment of Ben Bernanke. While the Republicans like to simplify him as merely a socialist he represents something far worse.

Of course it is not just Obama. He is at the end of a long line of Presidents that think they have some sort of divine right of kings to rule. Think about the Presidency of the United States since 1988. Bush, Clinton, Bush…If Obama had not won the Democratic primary we would have ended up with President Hilary Clinton. Catch my drift? Something is not right here. This is the United States not some sort of petty monarchy. There is no divine right of any family or group of families to rule. When this starts to happen you get the disaster we are now faced with. That said, the bigger point is this. What Obama has attempted to do is to wipe a complete economic collapse under the rug and maintain the status quo so that the current elite class in the United States remains in control. The “people” see this ploy and are furious. Those that screwed up the United States economy should never make another important decision about it yet they remain firmly in control of policy. The important thing in any functioning democracy is the turnover of the elite class every now and again. Yet, EVERY single government policy has been geared to keeping that class in power and to pass legislation that gives the Federal government more power to then buttresses this power structure down the road. This is why Obama is so unpopular. Everything else is just noise to keep people divided and distracted.

Getting Into the Mind of Ben Bernanke

I do not have a clear window into the highest levels of power in many areas such as the military or the intelligence community but I do have a very good understanding of it when it comes to the financial system and the economy. At the end of the day everyone knows that those who can create the money and credit have the ultimate power over any political system. Therefore, at the top of the economic power of the world is the Federal Reserve and at the top of that is Ben Bernanke. This is why I took a great deal of interest in reading the full text of his speech today. Much will be written about it but I want to tackle it from two points. First, who is Ben Bernanke?

You can really see into his head from reading this speech. He is an academic who thinks he is smarter than everyone else which is why he is in the position he is in. He thinks the key to monetary policy is to trick people into doing things that will hurt them in the end. He believes the mal-investments he intends to push people and institutions into equals economic growth. What surprises me so much about the investment community and the American public in general is that so many fail to understand that we live in a top down centralized economic system much more similar to China in more ways than people want to admit. We look at how the government steers the economy in China and sneer. How are we so different right now?

As far as the speech itself, it confirms something I mentioned several weeks ago. Banana Ben absolutely wants to do a massive QE2 program. The only thing holding him back is gold is near an all time high. What he wants is gold much lower and stocks much lower to give him cover. Gold has not cooperated so he is in a bind. He cannot print a massive amount of money with gold here and stocks at 1055 because what happens if gold soars and stocks sell-off in the days that follow such an announcement? What if the response in the treasury market is not as desired? He is scared to do it here and he is right to be scared because such a reaction would be the end of the Fed right then and there. The Fed will be gone anyway within a few years in my opinion but it’s going to fight hard to survive and if you want to make money in this market you need to understand that. The most powerful institution in the world is fighting for its survival. Never forget that.

So what is he going to do? I believe that the Fed and government are doing a lot more than people think to manipulate all markets behind the scenes. After all, they have publicly announced their manipulation in many other ways so does it make any sense whatsoever to assume they aren’t doing a plethora of other things behind the scenes? Of course not. I think that with the Fed in a bind they will accelerate and become ever more aggressive in behind the scenes games. This will make markets even more volatile and extraordinarily challenging. This is financial war make no mistake about it. The only way in my opinion to survive this is to buy all dips in precious metals, agriculture and oil. It is in these three areas that I expect to see the most price inflation as money eventually figures out the end game. The end game is more and more people will eventually wake up to the fact that the markets are a hologram put in front of you by the magicians at the Fed. That what constitutes real wealth in the years ahead will be owning food, energy and a means of exchange that will be accepted should a black market economy arise as it has in virtually all nations at one time or another throughout history.

In the end, the elites will be overthrown and a power vacuum will form. The transition period will be extremely difficult as the elites will fight their demise to the end. For you see, they care nothing for you they care about their power and control. Nevertheless, rulers have always only ruled by the will (or apathy) of the people and when the people become overly taxed and abused they always rebel. The main thing to think about is what kind of society do we want to rebuild from the ashes. I am of the view that it must be a return to the Constitution and an elimination of central banking power and secrecy. Let’s not fall for a demagogue or be pushed into a war when things are at their worst.

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Some of us think you knotheads that voted for Obama owe the rest of us an apology for jeopardizing our freedoms and "acting stupidly". Gridlock beats socialism seven days a week. To quote Thomas sowell, if we don't fix this in November, our country, as we know it is done.

I voted McCain with my nose held. But IMHO, it was the single worst choice presented for president in my lifetime. And there have been some doozies. Nixon/McGovern. Hoo-boy. Ford/Carter. Shazzam. But McCain/Obama was the worst. The only thing good I can say about the 2008 election is that progressives have had complete control and have been exposed for what they are. It will take them a more than a generation to get enough power to muck things up really badly again.

Look, a lot of you just need to stop talking and start paying attention; really, it's as simple as that. What and who each of these candidates was and who they represented was obvious. OK, obvious to me, but I talk a lot and will state things as unconditional maxims - you should listen, and quite probably obey.

Hell, I was a guy who bet money prior to the Iraq War that we'd find no WMD to justify the war, right into the TEETH of the media and "evidence" barrage being levied by Busch, Powell, and Tony Blair. Must have been something in Blair's speech, I simply intuitively knew that he was lying. Only now in hindsight do the others get what I found obvious a priori

I liked your post. It was nothing more than good honest communication. Why people turned it into a kick this guy to make myself look or feel better thing. I don't know. Like I said before the main monolithic conciousness has attacked all the dissenters logically and gotten beaten. And now it seems to be hitting everyone with subconcious undirected unthoughtful bullcrap.

Reading shit like this reminds me of listening to one of my children breathlessly telling me about some new discovery they have made, assuming they are the first to ever behold such knowledge. Hence, "The conceit of every generation is that their experiences are unique."

Now, patiently listening to little Joey & Janey is actually the fun part of parenting, especially if they begin to drill down a little deeper by asking logically linked questions. But some dude on the front cover of ZH? Come on; all you need to know is this: Get.Out.Now.

PS Slightly off-topic: Turd Ferguson, you really think Bernanke, et al actually believe(d) in their economic theories? Let me ask you this: do you think the Popes, especially during the Church's peak power years from 800-1700AD, actually believed in doG?

We are yeast - we employ various strategies to maximize our survival rate. We use a broad range of strategies to achieve these goals, chief amongst them deception & subterfuge. However, if subtlety doesn't work, then a brute-force whack over the head with a club is usually the fail-safe option.

There wasn't a single Jew alive in 1939 who would have believed what would be happening in 1944 even if he had been teleported through the future to see it first-hand. Ditto for fervent supporters of the 'noble cause' of either North or South in 1861 before Grant was proven right about the concept of "total war".

Our simian brains simply cannot process such information. As such, we merely lock down, watch, kvetch & complain. CogDis has written extensively on this topic. My advice is to listen to those who have witnessed & experienced tribal warfare: Get.Out.Now.

If you happen to be living in a cosmopolitan, racially mixed environment, get out now. If you're black, make damn sure you're living in an area comprised of 80-90% blacks. Ditto for Asians, Europeans & Hispanics.

When the shit hits the fan, the only thing that counts are tribal affiliations. The most notable divisions are those of the traditional Greek v Turk, Jew v Arab & Hindu vs Muslim. Check out 1821 (Greece), 1947 (India), 1948 (Israel), and more recently, 1974 (Cyprus) & 1991 (Yugoslavia). Of course, Rwanda reminds us that Africa doesn't want to be left out either.

For those still dithering ie job, house, family connections, all that means is either (a) you don't really believe the seriousness of what you're seeing; or (b) you don't get it.

All this trash talk about storing food & arsenals ain't gonna do shit if you're not in the right zone. Tribal allegiance is 99% of the game.

When/If SHTF, then, my biggest fear is that Indians will bear the brunt of that disdain. No, not those Indians; they have already been assimilated. The other ones. The ones that Columbus set out to truly discover and ended up being here. The brown skinned H1Bs who are taking away all our jobs, while it is the white/black/yellow/pink/vibgyor American managers who are hiring them by boatloads. I am pretty sure that outsourcing of the manufacturing base has led to an equal number of job losses, if not more than those stinking "curry eating" Indians could have taken from us. But, we don't see those Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Malaysian, Vietnamese manufacturing workers everyday. Hence, they aren't being maligned and are "safe". But, we do see a ****ing Indian in every office building we walk into. Hence, they must be the villains. Therefore, my conjecture.

Believe me, when I read posts about buying guns, ammo and non-perishable food, and preparing for the Armageddon, I cannot help but chuckle. It seems many on this site suffer from the Rambo syndrome - An army of one. That's such a myth. I have lived through attempts of ethnic cleansing, and know how inadequate all those preparations are. Your best friend/your family will betray you so that he lives/they can live another day. Many here talk about storing toilet papers. I ask, sans TP, how many of them have washed their arse with their bare hand with ice cold water and then eaten food with the same? That's what Armageddon is like and nobody ain't shit prepared for it. If it does happen, 90% of the people will die within 1 mile from their house, out of hunger and not anything else.

I generally appreciate your insights B9K9, however I must address the yeast comment as it diminishes your credibility even if it is a throw away comment. I would like to challenge conventional thinking. Collaborative capitalism in networks seem to prosper more than individual competition, look how the ants divide their labor. Even the survival of the fittest notion of Darwin is being questioned: http://www2.canada.com/story.html?id=3438267

We are approximately 100 trillion cells perfectly put together with many systems working at the same time and constantly recreating our bodies every two months for soft tissues and two years including the bones. The body recreates itself based on DNA, the blueprint language for our architecture. I use the word language because it effectively describes the design and is an unmistakeable harbinger of intelligence in the design. Notice plants take in oxygen and give off CO2 while we do the opposite. If our planet was just a little further from the sun we would freeze to death or a little closer and we would burn, just look at temperature extremes on earth. I am sure you don't feel the same way about your children as you do yeast. Beauty and proportion are also based on the golden mean ratio that can be found throughout nature and the universe including spiral galaxy arms. E=MC^2 holds along with many other equations proving there is order and universal laws.

The poorly educated actually believe that if you suspend time, or extend it dramatically that the laws in existence can somehow magically change or be suspended. Like the third law of thermodynamics for example, or probabilities.

Let me give you an example, if a tornado was to fly through a junk yard what would be the chances of it creating a fully functioning Boeing 747 jet? Today? How about giving it millions of years, would that increase the odds? I have lived long enough to understand probabilities along with my background to know THIS IS NOT RANDOM. Explosions do not create, they destroy like mutations causing cancer. Well listen here Pal, I see design, systems, and symbiosis all around me and a fully functioning jet would be a piece of cake compared to the complexity of the human body that we can barely comprehend along with this perfect world around us.

I find it amazing that people love inanimate objects that can't love them back (material wealth), and fail to see the wonder and amazement of human beings. The human brain is the most amazing and complex structure in the known universe. Yeast is a poor comparison, but if you want to devalue human beings and your children in your mind go right ahead with your cognitive dissonance - that's what TPTB want. If everyone understood how precious life is, there would be no wars.

Science can not explain love, consciousness, or anything else that can not be put under a microscope - it's not that it doesn't exist as we experience it, it's that some are impotent to measure it or observe it. Take time and Neils Bohr for example, recent discoveries show that time is discrete and ordered:

often wondered how people think that something living can be an accident and yet something simple like a space shuttle or a boeing 747 was obviously created. you are far more likely to get boeing 747s and space shuttles happening by accident than the complexity of life

If God creates through a series of conscious efforts spanning billions of years then there can be no accidents. The all powerful God causes everything that happens to happen. When cars crash or children fall in wells can you call these accidents as the events were put in motion and overseen by God?

If the all powerful God created all that is good in the world did he not also created everything that is evil in the world? Can you believe that cancer or pedophilia or racism could arise by accident rather than by the hand of God?

If the all powerful God created all that is good and all that is evil in the world then do you not offend God by praying for a better life for yourself or others?

Why make an effort to do anything, especially to please God. If you praise God it is because God made you praise God. What would be the point in that?

If God is all powerful how can any other being be said to have free will?

Do you believe given enough time that a tornado going through a junk yard can create a Boeing 747?

Although your question seems to be a non-sequitir argument not related to the argument I made regarding complex order versus complete random chaos on the spectrum, I'll bite.

An understanding of systems (programming or otherwise) would be helpful. For example, the woodpecker if it had any one of its three unique aspects (shock absorber for the brain, extra long tongue with retractor to avoid choking but reach bugs in trees, and sharp nails to hang on to trees) would theoretically be inferior and would therefore not survive in the survival of the fittest. All three would need to be present at the same time for it to function effectively. Now for chronology, the age old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, and it has finally been settled. It turns out, get this, that the chicken had to come first because a protein in the shell of the egg can only be created from an adult chicken. In the same manner, the first human being was not created as a baby since the babies I have known would not survive by themselves.

In fact, if you believe a one cell organism came into existence by itself I am not sure what it consumed to keep it alive since most living creatures consume other living creatures to exist (food chain). If you believe that with the probabilities I discussed that a one cell organism came into existence by itself, then why not up the ante with the possiblity that every living being instantly came into being or "evolved" at the same time if you want to use that language - it would better explain the systems we have. I want to be very clear, evolution is not a fact, it is a scientific hypothesis although it is being enforced like a religion and those questioning valid weaknesses are being treated in a similar fashion to Galileo stating the sun was the center of our solar system (I believe in true open minded science). Fishermen are pulling up live "fossil" fish from the deep thought to be extinct millions of years ago (why didn't they evolve over the eons?) and fossils have been found with human prints next to dinosaur prints (seriously how do we explain this). It is more complicated to believe in this than to believe our own eyes and common sense. It is true, both evolution and intelligent design require a leap of faith - but why is faith necessary?

I would reverse your argument and posit that creation was perfect but that it included free will. Perhaps like creating mankind in an adult state, the Intelligent Designer created the universe in its ideal state and perfect in every regard with the exception of free will. What satisfaction would it provide to create a perfect robot machine that was forced to serve, praise, and love you? If you had the choice of forcing your children to be robots that could only worship, serve, and love you, would you wish that on them or would you want them to decide to love you with free will - which would be more rewarding? Perhaps the creator does not believe in complete central planning, and decided to distribute authority/decision making. All creatures appear to have some element of survival mechanism and reproduction instinct programmed but also a level of free will, without that we would all be identical and it would be very certain and boring.

If the creator responded to every prayer, the creator would be responding to mans will like a genie in a bottle. Without human free will, it would be the equivalent of creating a robot machine. Free will includes the decision to choose between good and evil, just as a gun is not evil but a decision to use it could be.

If one believes in evil, they typically also believe in good (the opposite of it) and have some level of conscience. Even self honest satanists believe in the creator, but CHOOSE rebellion to natural law and their own will. If the intelligent designer is perfect, then I agree that justice will be served - eventually to right the wrongs, do not be deceived. Perhaps we all fall short of perfection and therefore need some level of mercy. The old testament has been found to be historically archeologically accurate to date. But perhaps the idea of spontaneous evolution is just a crutch for those that would prefer to believe that we created ourselves, the ultimate in ignorant arrogance to avoid accountability. Some live a lie just so that they can choose to "do as thou will".

We are currently in a morality play, we always have been, and the outrage on this site is all about good versus evil.

Although your question seems to be a non-sequitir argument not related to the argument

I have little interest in writing a dissertation on atheism, which is why I responded to the short reply to your post and not your post itself. My ramblings were presented as food for thought and nothing more.

Your position is thoroughly developed and buttressed with byzantine scholarly ruminations which in my opinion do not (and can not) prove your argument. Men have created any number of elaborate theories which are nonetheless incorrect and I do not chose to attempt to refute them except at the tangential points at which they intersect my existence.

I replied to the post I did because the writer said he can't imagine how a person could believe that life is an accident but space shuttles are not, which is just the slightest bit denigrating to those of us who have thought long and hard about the fanciful stories on which we were raised. I offered some off hand remarks in response to his off hand remarks merely, as I said, as food for thought.

The only solid point which I would care to make along these lines is this: belief in a creator requires faith. Faith is a mental state which which supersedes reason. To me it seems like folly to attempt to use reason in an effort to explain matters of faith. Why would God and his earthy representatives demand that men express faith if reason would suffice?

I appreciate your reasoning and sound logic regarding the need for a leap of faith, although this was addressed in my comment stating that Both evolution and intelligent design/creation required a leap of faith. I went on with many details designed to simply make people think - to question what you have been told by the TPTB and their education system. Both world views start with a premise - faith in X fill in the blank (deductive reasoning / inductive reasoning comes into play).

The statement that an opinion that probabilities favor accidental functioning machines over more complex machines that require more analytical capability (mankind can create machines but has not mastered creating life) has hurt your feelings is quite frankly a week and losing argument suggesting surrender. It says, I can't answer that, let me change the subject. I don't want you to change the subject, I want you to think. What if everything one believed was a lie, how would that make one feel? Denigrated? Evolution is a crude tool to be able to define and explain the existence all around us - we are still experimenting and gathering information on how it all works which is why we don't have all the answers and I am pro-science in compiling the jig saw puzzle.

You are correct on faith, but you believe faith exists and it is a mental state like consciousness that can't be measured under a microscope. I actually believe it takes more faith to believe in atheism, but that is merely my opinion. Back to my question on why faith is necessary - I think it is necessary so that mankind actually has the choice to use free will. Imagine clearly before you a being called the creator or a being called lucifer (both representing good and evil - where do we even get an image of what good and evil are?) Now, if you saw those beings clearly instead of merely finger and footprints hinting at their existence would you really have a free will or would you be essentially forced to choose perfection and be a robot?

The Greeks believed the word good could be attributed to anything that served its purpose. A saw was good if it performed cutting well as it was designed to do. What is our purpose, and how could we be deemed "good"? To believe in the meaningless of life is to believe there is no purpose, although living beings and the environment seem to have been very carefully designed with many systems working together perfectly. Can chaos and random created order, design, and purpose?

It is not my intention to be rude, but I have only briefly scanned your posts above. I've been down this road many times as I'm sure you have too and we each know where we stand on the issue. My views have nothing to do with promotions by TPTB. I am neither looking for converts nor to be converted.

I replied to the fellow who replied to you above in a rather off hand manner merely as an attempt to offer the commenter an alternate version of "I can't understand how some people can believe..." I'm just virtually chatting in an effort to pass some time in between doing other things in the real world.

I stepped aside and suggested that you carry on if you wished, but I meant amongst yourselves. No offense intended. I appreciate your eloquence and your passion for this subject but it's the sort of thing in which I take only a passing interest. I look forward to seeing your opinions on other thread topics as we each make our way through these glorious ZH days.

Humans seem unable to abandon magical thinking. A class of cellular molecules called RNA (ribonucleic acids) are the readers of DNA and the builders of protein tools within cells. Sound familiar? Information? Tools? And what are we? Yea, that’s right, we’re the analog to RNA on a different scale. Why do all of the little kiddies sent to school on their big yellow buses? To learn to manipulate information and build tools in our wonderful factories. Just happens to be the same thing RNA does. Welcome to the mechanistic life brought to you in full fruition by fossil fuels. We are simply a reiteration of what has already occurred and we think that somehow we will magically escape the same fate as other maladapted organisms. Do you think any of those lawyers and bankers running things are aware of what they are? I don't think so, and that's why they're going to run us into the ground while the superstitious slaves are directed to their heavenly rewards.

believe whatever fairy tales make it easier for you to get absolve yourself of human responsibility for the world as we have "moulded" it thus far in our brief evolutionary period, and / or make it through dude.

LOL - great response, Trav. Really, where the hell are these numbskulls coming from? Perhaps TD should increase the captcha difficulty factor?

That being said, it's sad to admit that I disagree (however slightly) with your assertion that this all started circa 1970. Rather, I would think it began sometime around the period of Malthus and the first stages of the Industrial Revolution. By that point, it was clear to the intelligentsia that increasing population growth & industrialization was going to create a need for a much greater command & control structure.

While still dallying through its incipient stages, this theory really took off after the US Civil war, in part by a recoginition of the elite of the truthfulness of Marx (and of course Jefferson before him), and the obvious effects of post-war industrial consolidation (aka 'trusts'). The creation of the Fed & XVIth amendment in 1913 were just a culmination of a long & steady process of centralization.

The oil subsidy merely raised the basis of the entire productive output : population equation, but did nothing to alter the inherent balance. Therefore, even as we cross over the peak oil threshold, it merely postulates that production & population will fall in unison, but it speaks nothing to the power structure.

I'm not so much concerned with the desires of men, because Mother Nature bats last and she has lightspeed hands through the strikezone and vicious opposite field power.

The whims of would-be kings are irrelevant if the sun decides to explode tomorrow. I see society as no more than emergent complexity. All this cannot exist without energy. We as a species rode an energy supply wave that has inflected.

All I do know is that life will go on and I intend to plan now to live out mine without too much suffering, as well as for my children. Not really "into" the whole revolution. Nobody wants to listen to the truth or to me; they'd really rather shout D & R back and forth and when they can't solve something, declare it as insoluble. I'm talking as a guy who's been told to use poorer vocabulary in order to not intimidate coworkers...people just don't want to hear the truth; there's no future for people like you or me who speak it and if they'd just let us have the steering wheel, we could guide the car back from the precipice. I've resigned myself long ago to the fact that I am outnumbered by the cretins by many orders of magnitude.

The power structure relies on energy for its existence, and it will fall of its own accord. The world will grow larger again. I don't fear for myself what's coming because I've seen with my own two eyes that true meaning can be found outside of the obesity of consumption that we have in this fishbowl. People need to get off the hamster wheel and understand that money cannot buy happiness.

But to change the system? It has too much inertia now. I'd sooner reverse a glacier with my bare hands than affect the outcome of this system.

Actually, I blame Regan for most of it, that's when the FED and Gold became relevant. And, a big And, Iran became a target. You see, I think we are fighting for others oil more than ours. Iran has boatloads of it too. But more important here is to look at Europe and what they import. Natural Gas. Hmmmmmmm. Think. What do have boatloads of. Natural Gas, so why do we not use more of it. Hmmmmmm. That is our stopgap. Not the whole answer. But it should be a bigger part of the picture. But, that would prevent all those profits from the central bankers and big oil. Think. What if our public transport and government used Nat. Gas for 90 percent of their needs. What a blow to big oil. But I guess it is better that Citigroup, Godman Shafts, and JPMorgan use our bailout money to buy boatloads on the dips and hold it off shore until they run it up. Hmmmmm. Just Thinking.

"Bush gave us this disaster". So sick of this shit. I HATED Bush and every single thing he did. But this "disaster" would have happened regardeless - maybe just a decade later. Our system by its nature was deisgned to collapse.

Obama or MCain are cardboard -cutouts for the real game of Fed Rerserve playnig Banks in charge. There game is over. RIP 1013-2008. Ben B. is running on Geithner's fumes. Nothing any longer to see here. Move along. Talk amongst yourselves.

not sure what you mean by "confirmed" but it's a story that has numerous sources - this one from CounterPunch also notes that the land includes nearby natural gas reserves, as well as sitting atop a massive water reserve:

Argentinean Adolfo Perez Esquivel warned that the real war will be fought not for oil, but for water, and recalled that Acuifero Guaraní is one of the largest underground water reserves in South America, running beneath Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (larger than Texas and California together).

which is entirely in keeping with the Bush Crime Family legacy, just looting the resources of "nationstates" with those arbitrary, move able / removable boundaries. . . I'm sure when the crowd is finished looting the UNITED STATES corporation, they'll move onto "greener" pastures.

(if I were you, I'd bail "here" for a "there" sooner rather than later. . .particularly as you have family in Peru - as always, take care sir!)

Thx for replying Cathartes. Note that the CounterPunch article is from 2006... NOTHING I have found is more recent or sounds authoritative.

Yes, one of the purported reasons for W to buy a big ranch there was access to water. Paraguay is actually an interesting country. My wife and I (25 years ago) spent a big chunk of our honeymoon there. I, myself, would not mind a tranquil life next to W's ranch, but my wife is a city girl and likes opera, etc.

Now you all know who is boss around here! LOL.

Paraguay is very corrupt and is a real backwater, but, still their beer is good and prices are (were) cheap.

...

Fleeing to Peru if TSHTF is always a possibility for us. But, I might just stay and FIGHT those who bring our (ex-?) freedoms down. I am armed and dangerous, LOL. AK-47 and Beretta 9mm. If I don't leave first, try and take it all away Fascist Bitchez!

You are still empowering the system, which is rotten to the core. Regardless of who you vote for, voting is still supporting the beast of elite control.

Of course this flies in the face of facts. Too many incumbent/insiders got junked in the Republican primaries to make your argument hold water. Just admit it, you are a lazy fuck pretending to be a smart one.

Voting does matter and while I do admit to feeling a bit powerless and on occasion even foolish for doing so, it can bring about change. Ron Paul didn't win the general election but outlasted all the Republican contenders except for McCain in the last prez cycle. In so doing, people actually became aware of the Federal Reserve and a few other ideas that the man has been carrying around for decades.

So don't think you are on high moral ground by pulling a George Carlin; You sir, are no George Carlin.

So don't think you are on high moral ground by pulling a George Carlin; You sir, are no George Carlin.

If you believe that this is an important topic, if you believe that you are correct in your views, if you made the effort to formulate a post can you also claim that you have not sought to hold the higher moral ground?

I think that you are upset because NotApplicable speaks persuasively for his own point of view. Being less eloquent does not make you wrong, but mincing, personal attacks hurt your ethos.

I think that NotApplicable is probably correct in this matter. I say that despite the fact that I, too, voted for Dr. Paul and will again if the opportunity presents itself. We're all evolving in a hurry in a higgledy-piggledy world, let's just do it with some tolerance and a little class.

Suppose that you and I were in a position where I, like government exercised a monopoly on the use of force. Suppose I gave you the option to be hit in the head with either a hammer or a tire iron. Would you exercise your "basic right to vote" in this situation and would you feel good about having the ability to make such a choice?

This may sound a bit over the top but remember that government makes decisions everyday that lead to suffering or death for some citizens.

"...being forced to provide funds for the murder of innocents is like getting bashed in the head. It hurts me."

You are not alone.

Just carrying a US passport generates shame inside me that I cannot affect. I'm already on the sovereign individual path (barter; shunning FRNs) and on the verge of withholding taxes for the very reason you express here. I will plead my case and take my chances in front of a judge. I still believe voting & elections are important and I continue to participate, but right now - for me - more dissent & direct action is necessary and this is the direction my soul demands of my mind & body, without hesitation.

I have tamed my own fear, but I do worry about those around me who will be affected by my actions. Tough times.

I'm all for self-empowerment, but that does not preclude voting. 'Voting' does not support the beast of elite control. Taxation, credit bubbles, and monetary debasement does. Even if everyone stopped voting, it wouldn't make a difference to the 'system'. They don't need our votes, they need our wealth, production, energy. Buying stuff, paying taxes, going into debt - those are the things that support the beast.

Now, if everyone gathered pitchforks, ropes, and torches, and took to the streets...maybe that would matter to them. But 'not voting' - they couldn't care less.

If you are only voting at the tail-end, post-primary, you are out of the loop. Incumbents and insiders are getting junked at the primary level. Your vote at the primary level has about a ten to one pop as most don't participate but this is where you can stop the two-party crime syndicate in its tracks.

Don't neglect local races either as they are also controlled by party bosses/agenda and you can definitely screw up their mojo.

In that same 2006 election I won a seat on the local Democratic Committee. I came to realize that my sole purpose was to be bussed downtown to the union hall in order to vote for the party operatives for whom my handler told me to vote.

Most folks don't want to spend their lives reading tea leaves in an effort to discover which minor candidates they should vote for today which might some day, way down the road lead to some minor improvement in the lives and very well may not.

I just want the government off my back once and for all.

The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble … and there is great danger that our people will lose that independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked … and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise. -- Mark Twain

But I am not a Democrat. I resigned my seat on that committee and registered Republican so that I could VOTE for Ron Paul in the primary. Then I registered as an Independent. As I've said before, I would vote for Dr. Paul again. I am also considering voting a straight Republican ticket in November but I would do this in an effort to rock the boat as violently as the electoral system allows. The best political outcome I can hope for is gridlock.

But your comment that Democrats shouldn't vote is interesting. You support a system in which most folks are Democrats. They will vote. And you will be left with the warm, comfy feeling that while your nation slips further toward Communism, you at least made an ineffectual effort to stop the process.

I oppose the entire system by which some folks get to tell other folks to do things which morally offend and personal injure them. I can not stop this system now, but I take comfort in the possibility that that system is close to destroying itself through stupidity and corruption. Then will come the day when free men will have a fleeting opportunity to declare and enforce the sovereignty of the individual. Prepare for that day.

Efforts to lead or co-opt the Tea Party are certainly nonsense. But the Tea Party stands as a vehicle for Americans to come together and voice opposition to government policies, to amplify the power of the cry, "No more!"

In other words, the guys who threw the tea in Boston harbor made their point in an impressive and spontaneous act. This was not followed by nominations for candidates running for high office.

The majority of folks I talked to in 07 and early 08 said that Ron Paul was right. Then they would inevitably say he has no chance of winning. A self fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps. But it also shows that most folks (at least a majority in my admittedly small sample) believe that the system is so corrupt that tyranny can only expand.

How many times do you expect folks to beat a dead horse before they realize that they have an appointment elsewhere and set off on foot?

As far as the speech itself, it confirms something I mentioned several weeks ago. Banana Ben absolutely wants to do a massive QE2 program. The only thing holding him back is gold is near an all time high. What he wants is gold much lower and stocks much lower to give him cover. Gold has not cooperated so he is in a bind. He cannot print a massive amount of money with gold here and stocks at 1055 because what happens if gold soars and stocks sell-off in the days that follow such an announcement? What if the response in the treasury market is not as desired? He is scared to do it here and he is right to be scared because such a reaction would be the end of the Fed right then and there. The Fed will be gone anyway within a few years in my opinion but it’s going to fight hard to survive and if you want to make money in this market you need to understand that. The most powerful institution in the world is fighting for its survival. Never forget that.

So what is he going to do? I believe that the Fed and government are doing a lot more than people think to manipulate all markets behind the scenes. After all, they have publicly announced their manipulation in many other ways so does it make any sense whatsoever to assume they aren’t doing a plethora of other things behind the scenes? Of course not. I think that with the Fed in a bind they will accelerate and become ever more aggressive in behind the scenes games. This will make markets even more volatile and extraordinarily challenging. This is financial war make no mistake about it. The only way in my opinion to survive this is to buy all dips in precious metals, agriculture and oil. It is in these three areas that I expect to see the most price inflation as money eventually figures out the end game.

Banana Ben absolutely wants to do a massive QE2 program. The only thing holding him back is gold is near an all time high. What he wants is gold much lower and stocks much lower to give him cover. Gold has not cooperated so he is in a bind. He cannot print a massive amount of money with gold here and stocks at 1055 because what happens if gold soars and stocks sell-off in the days that follow such an announcement?

Gold is the exit door to the trap, and Ben cant apply the bait and set the trigger until its shut.

I wanna hold em' like they do in Texas PlaysFold em' let em' hit me raise it Timy stay with me(I love it)Money game intuition play the cards with Spades to startAnd after they's been hooked I'll fake marked to market

Oh, oh oh oh oh, o-o-o-o-o-ohI'll get them hot, show them what I've gotOh, oh oh oh oh, o-o-o-o-o-ohI'll get them hot, show them what I've got

I wanna roll with Tim, a hard pair we will beA little printing is fun when you're with me(I love it)Russian Default is not the same without a gunAnd Timy when it's ‘covery if it’s not rough it isn't fun, fun

Oh, oh oh oh oh, o-o-o-o-o-ohI'll get them hot, show them what I've gotOh, oh oh oh oh, o-o-o-o-o-ohI'll get them hot, show them what I've got

I won't tell you that I own youDiscipline youCause I'm ‘flatin' with my easin’I'm not lying I'm just stunnin' with my print-FED-‘flatingJust like a broker in the NYSEBail your bank before I pay you outI promise this, promise thisCheck this hand cause I'ma monetarist

I'm mostly with you, but self-government includes the right to align with people with whom you have common interests. There are some interests which are common to many, most, and all people, and those interests need means of execution as well. Like a government. Unfortunately there's no easy answer to this paradoxical problem of common needs, governments, and the tools of power.

There is an easy solution. It's called voluntaryism. Align yourself as you will as disassociate at will. Simple.

My neighbour and I shall often agree in our means, and work together for a time to one end. But whenever I find my dominion over myself not sufficient for me, and undertake the direction of him also, I overstep the truth, and come into false relations to him. I may have so much more skill or strength than he, that he cannot express adequately his sense of wrong, but it is a lie, and hurts like a lie both him and me. Love and nature cannot maintain the assumption: it must be executed by a practical lie, namely, by force. This undertaking for another, is the blunder which stands in colossal ugliness in the governments of the world. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here is a great comment (cut and pasted), from Jim Sinclare over at www.jsmineset.com:

"Our money masters hate the yellow metal because its rise mocks their absurd assertions and debunks their claims of being able to “manage the economy”. It strikes, dagger-like, at the very hubris of these elitists who think that they are wiser than the collective judgment of the entire market, they alone possessing such keen insight into the nature of these matters that we should entrust our financial health to their hands. Imagine the conceit of a few men who think that by pulling on this lever or pushing on this button, that they can assure continuous prosperity and lasting wealth for all."

My point in posting that snippet, was to say true self-government can only happen when we have an honest and balanced medium of exchange. Choosing to buy PM's with little green coupons, and then using them later in TRADE & BARTER is a good start that anyone can do - who wants to...

If I were president I'd send in the Marines Or Rangers... into congress. Then point guns at every one of their heads, then I'd start dismantling all of the laws that congress has passed in that 200+ years after the Constitution. Then I'd have them write an economic constitution/bill of rights that would secondary to the original founding father's work. After this I'd sign this document with EVERYONE in Congress making it law and then kill everyone of them (cept Ron/Rand if he's still around), then hold congressional elections, and resign. My VP would then grant me a pardon as he would be the president.

Nice try, but you'd be about 6,000 miles short (to the west). If you really wanted to do that, you'd send the marines into the City of London, do a mopup operation and then wait for the proxies to set off a suitcase nuke in Chicago.

Palin speaks nothing of freedom. Listen to the way she talked during her campaign. The government needs to this to get jobs going again, the government needs spend money on our military familes, the government this and that.

What the fucking government needs to do is get the fuck out of our lives and start fucking ensuring contracts specifically a very important one that it has ignored for 200 years.

Ya, thats what they all said but decided to hold on to that power a little while longer since they knew better than everyone else. Just like the one-ring, no human can let go once they hold it. It will take a popular uprising (or a hobbit).

I'd love as much as the next person to hear that general so-and-so just declared martial law, rounded up congress and put them on trial. However, I don't want to be around when he or she decides to start making new rules.

"Something is not right here. This is the United States not some sort of petty monarchy." Never underestimate the power of denial. And by that I'm referring to the psychology of it. "anunconsciousdefensemechanismusedtoreduceanxietybydenyingthoughts,feelings,orfactsthatareconsciouslyintolerable."

Sure they are. I can get 2 plantings in a season, and the 100 degree streak finally snapped here this week. The plants do well producing in the cooler fall weather. Nothing does well when it's 100 degrees.

This end game is a ways off, over a decade away. To many people still have jobs. This kind of stuff take decades to run it's course. The small investors are out of equities, to many con jobs from the SEC, Federal Reserve,Congress, all the people who are in place to help have only helped the crooks to de fraud the masses. IT'S ALL RIGGED PEOPLE.

Only the banks with there free Fed money are in the market. Ken Fisher was out last week begging investor to enter the market. Won't be suprised if his operation is a ponzi scheme.

People are crazy to trust anyone other then themself's with there money. It's all a giant ponzi scheme.

We are currently at around 15% unemployment (all told) and the consensus seems to be that things seriously fall apart at 20%. I'd place deflation at 5% annually if we hit 20% unemployment, 10% annually at 25%. Game over, then. And it stays over for a long time.

It won't matter if everything looks fine at that point, S&P to the moon, etc. We'll be nothing but an empty suit.